So... What's growing in your garden?

  Holy cow!! My strawberry plants have taken over the garden!!  The tomato plants have doubled in size in the last three weeks. I guess I will lay off the fertilizer. I only feed once every three weeks. 

  The weather has turned for the cooler. We have been overcast and drizzly for the last week or so. Temps only in the 50's.  The beans, strawberries, carrots, and radishes are loving the cooler weather but not the basil, chives, or the tomatoes. I am thinking of bringing the herbs inside.

  Carlton, you might try to put some tin can lids on strings and hang them from the tree. The reflection from the sun is supposed to scare them off. Or you might try nets for the tree so that the birds can't get to the fruit underneath. My Grandpa used this method for peaches. However, you might find a few dead birds as they might get caught in the net. I have heard that owl dummies work too.

  Mayor Al, the apricots, cherries, and peaches here are still very green and hard. Our growing season here is a little behind the Lower 48 but the amount of sunshine per day, (18 hours plus,) certainly makes up for the short growing season.  The only problem I have here is getting the plants to fruit because they are still in the vegetative state much too long. I won't be able to harvest tomatoes until July 15th or 30th unless I cover them with black tarp at night. (Too much sun.)

  Happy growing!!!

  David O.

Any more rain and I'm going to be replacing my tomatoes and peppers with catfish!

Brad

Brad,
  I agree. While we get the usual bug issues with some fruit, the Plums this year are developing a moldy skin-cover when they start to turn Purple as they ripen. Our County Agent say it is due to the excessive rain and high constant humidity .  It seems if it isn't the deer or the bugs it is the climate  We are Doomed.>>>>>>>>>

OK  Just a couple of photos to show we have done a good job making Apricot sauce and Butter this week.

First cooking the cleaned fruit.



Then bottling it up !



Then we have the final product. The darker Butter was allowed to cook a much longer time in the crockpot to thicken it even more, hense the darker color.

 

  Wow Mayor, my daughter (8 yrs.) saw the pictures of the jam and butter and all she could say was "YUM!" We also love apricots. When I lived in Wickenburg, AZ a few years ago we had an elderly neighbor lady next door who had wonderful apricot trees that were being neglected. We helped her prune so that they would produce larger fruit and she let us pick as much as we wanted. Did we put up some jam? You bet!! 24, 1 qt. jars. We still have a few in the cabinet.

  Anyway, an update on my garden. The weather here has warmed again but the clouds are stubbornly hanging around. Not so good for the tomatoes as they need the sun to ripen. Also, the basil is doing better but still not very big. They also need sunlight and warm temps to grow hearty.

  I have been picking radishes for the last 6 weeks or so and keep replanting every three weeks till the end of summer.

The dill had a major growth spurt this last week or so. I think that we will be able to pickle the late harvest green tomatoes and the green beans without having to buy dill.

  Strawberries are sending off so many runners that I had to cage them to keep them out of the rest of the garden. The leaves are bigger then my hand. The berries are about 3-4 weeks from harvest.

  Carrots are late starters so I will just bide my time and hope for the best. I planted another 8 ft. row a week ago so we should have some soon. I usually harvest them as baby carrots because I like the strong flavor.

  Green beans are doing great but I need to trellis them this weekend before they get too big. As I said before I will be pickling them when they are ready. They are great in a Bloody Mary.

  The chives finally started to go crazy so I will transplant into the garden this weekend.

  That is all for now so I will continue to post updates an warranted.

  Happy growing!!

  David O.

 

The gardens on here (and the apricot butter!!!) are giving me garden envy. I had a 10x20 organic garden for 10 years, but I'm in an apartment with no patio of balcony now. Last year I convinced the landlord to let me take over some of the little weed patch under the peach tree, and we built 3 raised beds. We live above a bakery, which feeds the squirrels and birds leftovers, so we have a family of fat birds and squirrels. Last year, they ate just about everything but the tomatoes. This year, I used bird netting over two of the beds to keep the critters out, and it worked!


This one was taken Tuesday. Strawberries are sending out runners like crazy, the peas produced enough for me to actually take in (we have a habit of just standing there, eating baby peas raw from the pod), and the middle bed, with 3 kinds of beans, pickling and eating cukes, and pumpkins, is going berserk. The topsy-turvy planters were a Christmas gift from my daughter, so I'm experimenting with heirloom Brandywines and Romas in there. The blackberry bush in the back looks like it will produce enough for a couple of pints of preserves.

  Welcome to Roadfood Marence!!  You have taken a neglected space and turned it into a wonderful oasis! I wish I knew how to post pictures but I don't. I've been on this site for 5 years and still, I haven't tried to post pics.

  David O.

Welcome to Roadfood Marence! Your garden is lovely!

Tonight our dinner salad had our first tomatoes chopped up in it!!  I see a lot of very small patty-pan squashes getting started at the base of the flowers !. We ate two fresh plums today also. Delicious.

We live on a wooded lot and are lucky to even be able to grow a few herbs - just not enough sun all day for vegetables - however we do have lots of very kind friends that share their bounty with us.

This year the  we were given squash and cucumbers in mid May and the tomatoes were early this year - first week of June.  The corn began last week. Tonight dinner was grilled Salmon, grilled corn and a salad of cucumbers, red onion, fresh tomatoes, and some avocados thrown in for good measure.

This summer we also have a bumper crop of mosquitoes - not only will they try to devour you outside - daylight or dark - but this year they're invading the house as well so we're having to spray inside for the first time in a very long time.

It's gonna be a long summer.

  Mayor Al, nice that you have ripe tomatoes already. Mine won't be ready for at least another month as we have had little sun and lots of rain and cooler temps.

  The beans are doing well in the cooler weather and I used string and large nails anchored to the ground for "poles." I tied them onto my balcony upstairs like a tee-pee. there is about 8 ft. of growing space there and they get full "sun" everyday.

  My garden faces the south so it gets about 14 -16 hours of light per day. Now that summer is here and the days are getting shorter, some of the plants like the tomatoes and strawberries are going into the fruiting stage. I have about 40-50 immature tomatoes on the vine but they are growing quickly. 

  I planted another row of carrots a few weeks ago and they are now sprouting. I will be harvesting the first planting in a few weeks.

  Last week I pulled all the radishes and they were great!! I ate them one by one with a little sea salt while typing on this thread. (poetic justice think.)

  The herbs continue to struggle, (except the dill,) in the cooler weather but they will not get the sun they need indoors unless I get some lighting.

  All in all, things are going as well as expected for an amateur gardener in a new environment.

  Happy growing and eating!!

  David O.

Thanks for the welcome, David  O. & agnesrob - I've been lurking around the site for a while & decided to jump in here, since I'm so proud of my little garden.
The blackberries are reddish. I had a couple of weeks of bringing in something from the garden every day, and now I'm jonesing for fresh produce, since there's nothing ready right now. Except basil, and I'm collecting it bit by bit and freezing it for a batch of pesto later.
My husband asked a few days ago, "so now that the spinach and lettuce is done, what are you planting there?" I had no answer. It somehow never occurred to me that one bed would be completely empty all summer. Well, it's not anymore - the pumpkin vines have decided to take it over! If the size of the vines have anything to do with crop size, I'll have enough pumpkins to make a pie for each kid (and the grandkid, too!)

The house we have lived in for the past 50 years is on a small village lot that has become quite shady over recent years as the trees we have planted have prospered - a very large Amur Cork Tree, and 2 Red Oaks. The result is that we have very little space sunny enough for vegetable crops, so, while our herbs - chives, basil, oregano, mint, sage, bay, tarragon, thyme, and rosemary - continue to thrive(some in pots that we can move around into the sun), we have given up on everything except tomatoes which we are also growing in large pots. Due to a virus in our soil that destroys any tomatoes plants in the garden soil, and a general lack of sunny areas we have been forced to go to the pots to get any tomatoes at all. For years before things became too shady we grew zucchini, lettuces, peppers,and tomatoes. And, I almost forgot we've always had plenty of rhubarb from plants that were in the garden when we moved in - we think they were planted by Gail's grandfather in about 1935.

And starting last year ( our first year without any cats in residence) the rabbits have enjoyed eating our lettuce, zinnias,cosmos,asters, and marigolds. I've sprayed a repellant around the garden but to little avail. They never seem to bother any of our perennial flowers.

I'd invite any of our Roadfooder friends with guns to come and take target practice on our rabbits, but if you ever shot at one you'd be arrested by our local cops for discharging a firearm within our village limits...

Cheers, John 

I'd invite any of our Roadfooder friends with guns to come and take target practice on our rabbits, but if you ever shot at one you'd be arrested by our local cops for discharging a firearm within our village limits...

Cheers, John 

    That's where sling shots and air pistols come into play. When I lived in rural AZ. I used to have to shoot at the javelena as they could destroy a garden in seconds. They root around like pigs and are very aggressive. They have terrible eye site but they can smell for miles. Coyotes too.

  David O.

Seafarer,

Perhaps you could stand as a test case for the new 'Self-defense' position of the Supreme Court's recent 2nd Amendment in your community.

For us, it is the Deer doing the damage, and to a lessor extent, the Crows.  We use Bottle Rockets that make a real shreek as they fly, and the usual 'firecracker bang' at the end of their range. They work great on the crows...but you must get fairly close with the Deer!  Janet has actually hit a Deer with one! Sucker left the property at full-speed !

The wind damage wasn't as devastating as it looked. This represents 30 seconds of Santa Rosa plum picking this morning, and there are many more on the trees waiting for the perfect stage of ripeness. A bumper crop year, no doubt.

These first few pickings won't live long enough to become jam, mainly because I'm going to jam them down my throat.

Beautiful plums. I don't have room to grow fruit, but the farmer's market usually has a good selection of seasonal. The two exceptions are my two favorites: figs and plums. Seems most people want to keep what they grow.

You're welcome to all the figs and plums you can pick from my yard.

I took some of my kids to Huber's Family Farm Restaurant today for a really good lunch. After lunch we stopped at Huber's winery and farmers market to get some stuff for them to take home. The Farm has a Peach "U-Pick" orchard that offered some nice fruit, but you supply the labor.  Price $1.49 a pound !!!  That is a very high price for peaches in todays market...and you have to do the picking.  We have Peaches in the local markets at 99 cents a pound and even less .  So I like the restaurant, but won't pay that much for farm-produce.
 
My local source for yellow sweet corn will begin picking early next week. We have an order in for 2 Bushels (13 dozen) at $10 a bushel for delivery next Thursday.  His Silver Queen won't be ready for another 3-4 weeks. We already have an order in for 5 bushels of that white wonderful corn, when it is ready. (same price)

My garden has done really well.  My corn has already tasseled and now corn has beginning to shoot from the stalk.  I got lotsa Okra, beets, tomatoes, cucumbers, all kind of peppers.
 
My salad garden has really given me and mamaw Smith a lot of joy this year.  If only I could keep the varmits out.  They really enjoy the low hanging fruit.
 
I am pumping about 5000 gallons a day of water on my property from the Tennessee River.  In spite of the drought, things are green here.
 
Paul E. Smith
Knoxville, TN
 
Paul E. Smith 

What is now growing in my garden is NOTHING.  Between the critters, the wind and the ohmygod rain, I have a swampy, eaten, rotting mess.

My chives, which were the only thing going, are being choked out by some ornamental vine my mother planted.

Maybe next year....

Felix,

I feel your frustration. Last year we were well on our way to a beautiful fruit crop, when a late (April 26th) Freeze took over 90 percent of Everything!

This year we got some Apricots for the first time ever, but the Bumper crop of Plums we have been watching was struck by a terrible mold/fungus that hit just as the fruit was changing to purple. We got a few plums, but not enough to do anything with them.  Our Apples and Pears are coming along, but we are watching for another of the "Plagues" to strike in this extra-warm year. 

Jan's veggies are doing well

I was sort of winning until the storms last week.  They weren't as bad here as they were before they came across the lake, but more than once we got over two inches of rain in under an hour, coupled with steady 50mph winds that gusted to almost 90mph frequently.  At least the tornado that touched down was almost a half-mile away!

Yeah, it's been that kind of year.  S'ok...the farm stand near my house still has everything, plus stuff I hadn't planted.

seafarer john


And starting last year ( our first year without any cats in residence) the rabbits have enjoyed eating our lettuce, zinnias,cosmos,asters, and marigolds. I've sprayed a repellant around the garden but to little avail. They never seem to bother any of our perennial flowers.

I'd invite any of our Roadfooder friends with guns to come and take target practice on our rabbits, but if you ever shot at one you'd be arrested by our local cops for discharging a firearm within our village limits...

Cheers, John 

Try dachshunds.  Our pack was murder on the neighbor's rabbits that sneaked into our yard to go after the vegetables. 

TONITE we picked up TWO Bushels of "Bodacious" Sweet Corn that had been picked just minutes before we picked it up. At $10 a bushel it is a real bargain. I managed to devour two ears as I drove home!!  We will eat most of this fresh, and process some  for later. We also got our order in for 4 bushels of Silver Queen, our favorite White Corn. It will be ready by about the 24th of the month.  We are very lucky to have a local farmer who calls us to tell us when he will have our order ready!  I love the Sweet Corn season here in Indiana!

My garden has done very well this year thanks to the generous supply of water from the Tennessee River, burning a huge brush pile on the site right before planning.  I had hundreds of cucumkbers, all kind of peppers now, okra that I pick almost daily and about a hundred stalks of corn that are now growing close to maturity.  I planted peaches and cream.  That is what we had last year and it did very well as it is doing this year.
 
My tomatoes are bearing very well but some creatures seem to beat me to them.
 
My beans did very well although Mamaw Smith enjoys them more than me.  She canned 10 pints of beets yesterday.
 
Paul E. Smith
Knoxville, TN

Well we have one bag of two dozen ears of Sweet Corn left to nibble on, and have "put-up" twelve 2 lb bags of "off-the-cob" into the freezer.  I have been surprised at how well the sweetness holds on this home-done corn. We recently enjoyed a bag of last years corn and it had not 'starched-up', retaining a lot of the original sweetness of the "super-sweet" garden corn.

These posts are making me miss canning! If I can get through the drought here, we may have enough pickling cucumbers to make me not miss canning anymore ;)
My Topsy-Turvy experiment is going OK. The big problem is the daily watering needed - gallons of water, every day. Thank goodness for my husband, who loves fresh tomatoes enough to go out with a bucket and water those guys every day.

All my plantings are on my patio. My tomato plants have tons of fruit on them, but all green...can't understand why nothing is ripening, neither are my cherry tomatoes in my topsy turvy, again laiden with fruit, but all green. My herbs are doing great...basil, parsley, oregano and thyme. With the horrific heat and humidity, I've been doing daily and sometimes twice daily waterings.

 Linda, I have the same problem here with tons of fruit on the vine but nothing ripe. It has been cool and cloudy for the last month. Finally the sun came out today!! A beautiful 66 degrees and not a cloud in the sky! Just in time for my day off.

  Al, I just got some fresh sweet corn from a local farmer. I will be cooking that and some fat steaks for the family and my boss who is coming to dinner. Martinis fallowed by classic wedge salad with Maytag Bleu cheese and pepper bacon bits.

  Marence, I don't do much canning but I do put up pickles every year. I like to pickle the late harvest tomatoes that don't have a chance to ripen before the first frost. Green beans are also great pickled with garlic and lots of red pepper.

  David O.

We tasted a couple of apples yesterday. They shouldn't be ready for another month , but the constant 90 degree plus temps are wrecking the normal garden/orchard schedule this year. Looks like we will be doing some Apple Butter in July this year....That's a first for us.

My cherry tomatoes are ripening quickly but my other tomatoes are loaded with fruit that's still green. We've had a few cucumbers and there are quite a few more on the vines. I also picked a Japanese eggplant. My other eggplants are doing well also. The herbs of course are taking over, I guess I will have to cut them back and dry or freeze them.
Much better year  for my garden. Last year I got to eat about four tomatoes before the late blight overtook them.
I'm really enjoying reading about all your gardens!

Agnes,

Here is Janet prepping the garden just before the Derby (May 1st) using her favorite tool, a lady-pushed old hand-cultivator.  After the ground had been tilled a couple of times!



And here is how the garden looked yesterday (July 10). It has come along way.!!
Tonight, Sunday, we will grill a couple of steaks and use some Summer Squash chunks, Onions and local Peaches marinated and on skewers on the grill to go with the steaks.

  Great looking garden Al!! 

  The weather here has been cool and cloudy for the past three weeks so not much sun.  :(

  Well, the green bean vines have reached 8 feet tall and still no flowers as of yet. They have grown onto my upstairs neighbor's balcony onto their trellis. I told them that they can have any beans that pop up there.

  Carrots are doing well but are still small even after 3 months. I tried a few baby ones yesterday and they were sweet and delicious. I have another 8 ft. row to harvest late season.

  The strawberries are in full bloom and producing wonderful sweet berries every day. I decided to let the runners go for the rest of the season for a bigger patch next year.

  The tomatoes are doing great except that I had to remove the cages as the tomatoes inside the plants weren't getting any sun. Still, I have nothing ripe on the vines. About 200 greenies though.

  The dill is the only herb that has done really well out of doors . I brought the chives and basil inside and they are doing much better. A lot of new growth. I will be building an extended shelf for the herbs and indoor plants tomorrow.

  I am thinking of planting a few more rows of radishes again as they mature so quickly here.

  The late summer can be warm here but the frost comes so quickly.

  Happy Growing everybody!!

  David O.

 

 

I borrowed a hav-a-hart trap from a friend and have to- date caught and taken for a ride across the river: 1 skunk (got lucky - no bad spay), 1 possum, 1 woodchuck, 1 rabbit. My garden has not been damaged for almost a week now.

I had tried spraying an animal deterrent around the garden, but it did not seem to do much good - something was still eating my marigolds and zinnias.

We picked our first cherry and yellow pear tomatoes a few days ago. The local farmer's markets and roadside stands are offering excellent sweet corn, tomatoes, cherries, and peaches now, so life is good.

Cheers, John 

I'm borrowing my brother-in-law's garden next week.  He's got pole beans, zucchini, summer squash, green peppers, jalapenos, and four kinds of tomatoes about to be ready and I'm house-sitting while they're on vacation starting Monday.  There may be other things as well.


I learned something a couple of weeks ago regarding animals digging in gardens...no better repellent than human hair!  If you've got a friend who works at a barber shop or salon, ask them to bag the clippings periodically for you.  If not, ask them to save your own, and/or clean out brushes, etc. outside and let the hair fall around your plants.  It works sort-of for animals eating aboveground plants, but it's amazing for animals that dig, particularly flower bulbs.

  So... I put a shelf in the living room for the herbs and they are already responding to the warmer temps in the house. The basil and chives already are sprouting new leaves. I will keep them indoors for the rest of the year. I used some of the plentiful dill weed to flavor some fresh caught trout and salmon that we hooked this week.

  David O.

  Tomatoes finally ripening!! I cut off the tops of the vines in hopes that the fruit will get more light, and also to put more energy to the fruit on the vine as opposed to growing more leaves. Seems to be working. Green beans are now more than 12 feet tall and still have not flowered. They are now firmly attached to my upstairs neighbor's trellis on their balcony.

  Happy growing,

  David O.

                          D I S A S T E R  ! ! ! !


 Today, as the A/C kept me alive in the house, we suffered a major disaster in the Pantry/Laundry Room. The metal shelving in that room was pretty well loaded with cases of "Put-UP" Fruit and some Veggies too.  Suddenly about 2 hours ago, came a MAJOR crash sound from that room.  One of the shelves had pulled away from the wall and crashed onto the laundry machines and then to the floor. The area is directly in front of the 'Doggie Door' the Scotties use for entering and exiting the house.  Many bottles of fruit smashed and broke and the contents are mixed  with chunks of broken glass over and area of about 6 ft x 3 ft.

  I have picked up and washed about 4 cases of bottles that were not damaged in the fall, but did get smeared with contents from the bottles that did break. Still at least 4 cases of bottles on the floor in varying condition. I can't tell if the bottle is broken until I pick it up and manually check it for leaks. Looks like a loss of about 2 cases (24 bottles) of various fruit.  
It looks like the shelf worked it's way loose due to the vibration of the nearby furnace/AC unit. 

We'll find a safer location for our food!! What a huge waste of good food and a lot of hard Prep Labor !!

  Sorry to hear about your calamity Al. A lot of hard work and love down the drain... as it were.

  David O.

I can't remember a better tasting tomato than the ones I am getting now.  I believe the long, extremely hot dry spell was responsible. 

I planted a San Marzano plum tomato that is thriving.  I eat 5 or 6 of them right in the garden while I am picking.

mayor al


                          D I S A S T E R  ! ! ! !


 Today, as the A/C kept me alive in the house, we suffered a major disaster in the Pantry/Laundry Room. The metal shelving in that room was pretty well loaded with cases of "Put-UP" Fruit and some Veggies too.  Suddenly about 2 hours ago, came a MAJOR crash sound from that room.  One of the shelves had pulled away from the wall and crashed onto the laundry machines and then to the floor. The area is directly in front of the 'Doggie Door' the Scotties use for entering and exiting the house.  Many bottles of fruit smashed and broke and the contents are mixed  with chunks of broken glass over and area of about 6 ft x 3 ft.

  I have picked up and washed about 4 cases of bottles that were not damaged in the fall, but did get smeared with contents from the bottles that did break. Still at least 4 cases of bottles on the floor in varying condition. I can't tell if the bottle is broken until I pick it up and manually check it for leaks. Looks like a loss of about 2 cases (24 bottles) of various fruit.  
It looks like the shelf worked it's way loose due to the vibration of the nearby furnace/AC unit. 

We'll find a safer location for our food!! What a huge waste of good food and a lot of hard Prep Labor !!

What a loss.................after all that hard work.  Sorry for you.

joerogo


I can't remember a better tasting tomato than the ones I am getting now.  I believe the long, extremely hot dry spell was responsible. 

I planted a San Marzano plum tomato that is thriving.  I eat 5 or 6 of them right in the garden while I am picking.

   Joe, when I lived in Arizona, I had some of the sweetest tomatoes and strongest basil that I ever grew. I am sure that it was due to the hotter temps.

  Here in AK, the basil is weak and the tomatoes are not as sweet or big. The weather here has been very cool and wet for the past few months as mentioned earlier.

  David O.

Al,

What a tragedy to lose those bottles of fruit!!!  Nothing can replace them.

I so enjoyed the photo of the old hand cultivator.  My niece has my grandfather's cultivator that she uses on her garden.  I don't know exactly how old it is, but my mother who is 88 says that she remembers it being used on my grandfather's farm when she was a child.

We only have tomato plants this year.  This time of the summer I get fresh green beans & cucumbers from the farmers market.  Practically all of our meals include southern style green beans(salt pork, chunk of onion, salt, pepper,little bit of sugar),sliced cucumbers & onions(marinated in vinegar,water, sugar,salt,pepper) & sliced tomatoes.  We eat the cherry tomatoes just like grapes,so sweet & good.  Also, I make caprese salad,gazpacho, BLT's with the tomatoes.

Oh no!  So sorry about the loss of your fruit and labor.

Please give that floor another rub down to keep the Scotties safe.

Thanks for the sympathy notes. Our net loss was about 12 pint jars of various fruit, mainly Apricot Butter.  We were very lucky that one box broke apart as it fell into the open washing mashine...that had almost a load of clothing ready to wash...so it was pretty cushioned when it hit the bottom and nothing broke in that one. The floor was pretty messy until we got the visible glass pieces out of the way, then scrubbing it went fairly quickly.

Our squashes have come and now are pretty much gone.  the Roma Tomatoes are ripening faster that we can get foliks to0 come over to pick them. Peppers are doing great too.

  Could have been worse.  We be thankful for what we have left!

  Supposedly, the weather here is going to warm up and we may even see a little sun this week. The Romas are starting to ripen and the green beans are up to the railing of my upstairs neighbor's balcony. (no flowers as of yet.)

 I will be pulling carrots through the week as they are ready. I will have another late harvest crop in mid-Sept.  I might pickle some with the dill that is also doing great.

  I could probably squeeze one more crop of radishes in before our first frost. (Maybe.)

  Strawberries are done producing fruit so I let them run riot over the rest of the garden for a bigger patch next year. 

  Basil and Chives doing much better indoors.

  Happy Growing!!

  David O.

 

Garlic harvested this weekend:

Yuuuuuuuum!

The local Deer population

Those garlic look great ! We had neighbors on the high desert in SoCal who had a 4 acre plot of Elephant Garlic. Even though that is a VERY mild strain of Garlic, when the fields were pulled and drying, the odor was pretty strong for some distance around thier place.  I love that smell!!

Yeah, all the garlic drying in the shed and the basement make it smell a lot.  Kinda like kielbasa, actually.

Speaking of smells-------living in Brooklyn as a kid it was not unusual to have 8 nationalities living in one brownstone.  2 families per floor X 4 floors high.   Every family cooked their different stuff 8 different ways. 

Kitchens were right off the common halls and there were no such things as hoods and fans.-----the halls had the job of blending all 8 odors and making them into one hetrogenic appetizing aroma-----never worked. 
Living on the top floor was a real adventure-----hot air and smells rise to the 4th floor and sit there.

  Yeah, I know the smell. Vietnamese food in on place, Indian in another, Spanish in the other and Italian in another. Don't forget the Germans and the Jews. Also the Pakistanis, Iranians, Russians, and Poles. I used to live in a tenement in Dodge City, KS. that had all of the above living in the same 12 apt. complex with 3 floors. I kid you not!  What a cacophony of aromas.  Bordering on stench!!

  JMHO

  David O.

My three year old rosemary bush and tarragon are turning brown, stalk by stalk, and I'm sick that I caused it by overwatering - This summer has been brutally hot, and I'm convinced it's root rot, if not, the plants are stressed from too much heat and water - now we've got a tropical depression out there bringing thunderstorms every day for about 4 straight days.

For something more positive, here's an interesting recipe for rosemary:

Tuscan and Rosemary Pine Nut Bars

1/4 c. pine nuts
1 stick butter, cut in 10 pieces
1/2 c. powdered sugar
1 TBSP. chopped fresh rosemary, or 2 tsp. dried
1 c. all purpose flour

Preheat oven to 350.  Spread pine nuts over a baking sheet, toast, tossing once or twice during roasting, to prevent burning.  When they reach a shade darker and are fragrant (about 5 mins.), remove  from baking sheet and set aside. 
 
In the meantime, add pats of butter to a small saucepan until melted through.  Remove from burner, slowly stir in sugar, rosemary, and pine nuts.  Then add in flour to make a stiff dough.  Spread dough evenly in a 8" ungreased square baking pan lined with parchment.  Bake until golden brown and firm, about 20 minutes (turn once half way through cooking).    

Cool pan on rack, then take a sharp knife and cut into 16 squares.  Will keep for a week in an airtight container, and for a  month in a zip loc bag in the freezer. 
 

Can I cut the butter into 8pieces?  

These actually sound interesting.  

Sorry about your rosemary and thyme.  I've never been able to grow Rosemary without it immediately turning brown.

Mar52- yeah you can cut the butter in 8 pieces, I knew it sounded dumb, when I wrote it, but it's from the original recipe and I think the idea is to keep from melting all at once too fast and having it separate?  The parchment is my addition, because I'm afraid in a metal pan, the bottom and sides may scorch.  Give it a try, it's ... different. 

 

Small potato,,,great tomato....
Our potato crop (a 15x15 plot) is a bust. Lots of B sized spuds. They taste great, but the yield is not much more than I planted. Even "Caribe" which often gets over sized, was small. I did plant the Caribe close together to hold back on lunkers, but this would have been a year for normal spacing.

The tomatoes are another story. They are wonderful, early, and are yielding like crazy. For a few years I have planted "Marmand" and "Super Marmand", updates of the classic French heirloom. They have not done well for me, and the flavor has been average. If not for some left over seeds, I'd have not planted it this year. With our hot dry summer, though, they did very well. This year, Marmand is big at about a pound each, well shaped, with few scars, and perfect , fresh garden tomato flavor. The "Speckled Romans" are the prettiest tomatoes, and the "old Germans" are nice too, but since I have so many, I am eating mostly the Marmands.

  Well...

  Time for another rainy update.

  The weather here has not been kind to my garden. So far we have had 32 days of rain in a row. We broke a 100 year old record! Also the temperature has not been above 70 degrees since May. (another record)

  Needless to say that the tomatoes are doing poorly. Not ripening well, and the flavor is flat. The green beans are doing great, about 20 ft. tall, but still no flowers yet??? Carrots that I pulled after 3 months were small but very sweet. I still have a row to pull at the end of the season. The dill is the only thing in the garden that hasn't been affected by the cooler temps and relentless rain.

  That being said, since I moved the basil and the chives indoors, they are doing much better. I'll keep them through the winter inside as they have a nice shelf in full sun for the solstice.

  I am starting to worry about moose getting into the garden as they are going to be rutting early because of the cooler weather. I'll try to top fence it in. They hang around the back yard a lot and get more aggressive as the weather turns cold.

  Happy Growing and Eating

  David O.

Flowers are beautiful, I'm still buried in Tomatoes, most other veggies done in by the unusual hot summer. All fruit is gone.